Political history is hard, let's go shopping.

Here is a good blog post on the history of the relationship between the church and politics.

• No Versailles, no National Socialist rise to power, no Hitler, no Holocaust
• The Soviet Union is much smaller. It seems much less likley to dominate Eastern Europe and that part of the world is under German and Austria-Hungarian domination. Standards of living in Eastern Europe are as a result higher. Ukraine at the very least dosne't experience the Holodomor. Who knows perhaps Germans and Austrians even manage to do what the Entente couldn't and stamp out the Bolsheviks of Russia. In any case the mass slaughter and destruction of the Great Patriotic War are probably fully avoided.
• Japanese expansion in the Far East is probably more limited, reducing the possibility of a Japanese-American war
• National humiliation in France and Britian could perhaps result in either a Fascist or Communist take over. But both seem pretty unlikely. Even if they do happen, France in itself is far too weak for any revanchist warmongering, while Britain could only manage this if it was willing to lose its empire. And neither seem that likely to receive American support in such a war unless a US president does a FDR on steroids.
• The Middle East remains under Ottoman control for the time being, I have a strong feeling that the Middle East several decades later in a alternative 2012 would be much less messed up than it currently is.

The immediate effects seem pretty darn beneficial and hard to beat. The end of the first world war with a Central powers victory basically changes the balance of power making Britain a second rate force decades earlier, preventing a Soviet rise to power, America remains much more isolationist... I have a very hard time seeing anything like a part two to that struggle.

A Stalin like figure might decide to try and invade central Europe but this seems unlikely. An American-Japanese war is still possible, but it seems unlikely to involve a European theatre in itself.

Did I mention we avoid the fucking holocaust and keep large chunks of Eastern Europe away and safe from Bolsheviks at least during their most damaging and bloodthirsty years? It just seems so overwhelmingly likely that this is a better world that I'm mystified why anyone would think it very likley to be worse.

Reducing the relevance of a global Communist vs. Capitalist struggle narrative also seems to much reduce the possibility of global annihilation. Maybe nukes are used in one or two ill though out wars, but then again nukes where used in our time line in a ill thought out war and we didn't turn out so bad.